A father falsely accused of molesting his daughter has walked away from court with nothing but a judge’s sympathy after his bid for damages from Wokingham Borough Council was rejected.

The dad, who cannot be named for legal reasons, took on Thames Valley Police and Wokingham and Reading borough councils to get damages for the “ghastly nightmare” he suffered for more than five years while accusations he molested his daughter hung over his head.

Lord Justice Keene, sitting at London’s Civil Appeal Court last Tuesday, rejected the bid to overturn a ruling that the dad will not receive damages from the three authorities.

The judge said he sympathised with the dad for the “long-running and unhappy saga”, which began 20 years ago.

However he concluded the police and social services had the three-year-old girl’s best interests at heart – whatever mistakes were made during the initial child abuse investigation.

Lord Justice Keene said: “However much sympathy one may have for the father, who suffered a horrendous time, any appeal in this case is doomed to failure.”

It took five years for accusations against the dad to be dropped and although he was then able to begin rebuilding his relationship with his estranged daughter, he says the accusation, made in the early 1990s, blights his life to this day.